


Ten Percenter

by SpaceSeaGirl



Category: Bleach
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, F/M, Female Kurosaki Ichigo, Female-Centric, Gen, Gender Dysphoria, Gender Identity, Gender Issues, Gender or Sex Swap, Rule 63
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-12
Updated: 2017-09-13
Packaged: 2018-12-26 21:02:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12066921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpaceSeaGirl/pseuds/SpaceSeaGirl
Summary: Ten percent of the soul population has reiatsu that’s of a different gender than their body.  But when they unlock their Shinigami powers, the reiatsu gender wins over and they permanently transform.  Ichigo gets a little surprise when he is triggered by Rukia’s Shinigami powers that night.  The day after becoming a Shinigami, he learns the truth about not only his gender but his past.  Yet the road from boy to girl is never simple or easy, and the path after that is murky and uncertain.  How much change would a simple gender switch make?





	1. Chapter 1

When Ichigo came into consciousness again, he felt… different. He figured that was because of the Shinigami uniform, and maybe because of the change in pressure in his spirit-energy-whatsits thing. 

In the heat of the moment he only registered two things: First, he had a giantass sword. Second, he could use it to cut the Hollow monster in front of him. Means. Goal. Pretty damn simple.

He sprinted forward on a jet of supernatural speed, cut off the Hollow’s arm before it could respond, and appeared again behind it. It lunged at him, he cut off its leg as it came toward him, and then he shouted angrily, “This is for attacking my family, you fish-faced freak!”

His voice sounded - different - but on his wave of adrenaline he didn’t totally register that either.

He cut straight through the Hollow, watched it disintegrate - saw a brief shot of Rukia kneeling with her hand over her mouth and big eyes behind it - wondered what she was so freaked out about, because the monster was gone -

And then Kurosaki Ichigo blacked out.

“... Ichigo! _Ichigo…!”_

The echoing faded.

-

He came to… surrounded by family. His sisters were there; so was his father. Rukia was there. And so were a whole shitload of people he didn’t recognize.

“I feel like I’m dead,” Ichigo announced. “Am I dead? Did the energy transfer kill me? You all look… super serious.

“... Wait. What the hell’s wrong with my voice? Why is it so… high? And why is my chest heavy?”

Yuzu did the weirdest thing - she put her hand over her mouth as if to hold back laughter. Rukia smirked. Dad just _stared._ And how did they all know each other? And who were all these other people?

“... I am _so_ sorry, Ichi-nee,” said Karin fervently.

“Sorry for…?” And then Ichigo went deadly quiet. “Karin… why did you just call me your sister?”

Karin gasped and put her hand over her mouth. Yuzu nudged her. _“Karin-chan!”_ she hissed.

“Now might be a good time for me to step forward!” said one of the strange men brightly. He had chin length blond hair and stubble, wore a boat hat, clogs, and traditional clothes, and carried a cane. Right now he had an open fan before his face but his eyes were glinting with positive _glee_ that instinctively made Ichigo feel nervous. Not that he’d ever show it.

“Who the hell are you?” Ichigo said forcefully from the pallet in the traditional rice paper screen room he realized he was lying on. Still with the weird voice.

“My name is Urahara Kisuke! And I believe I have an answer to your… predicament. You see, when Shinigami -”

“Geez!” Ichigo hissed, half sitting up and looking around. “There are living people -!”

“They all know,” said the red-haired boy flatly, looking distinctly embarrassed. “And lay back down and cover yourself,” he added in a gruff mutter, blushing and looking away.

Ichigo slowly lay back down.

“Ahem.” Urahara continued. “When Shinigami first reach their powers, initial body reacts with reiatsu. The two have formed separately. So, in a rare about ten percent of cases, when the body and the reiatsu react, they are of two different genders. The problem is, once a person has accessed any sort of reiatsu Shinigami power of their own, reiatsu always wins out and they’re stuck that way. Say, for example, a human was a female. With male reiatsu, as a Shinigami she would become a biological man - as if she had always been one.

“And the reverse is also true,” he added quietly, watching Ichigo carefully. “If a boy accessed distinctly female reiatsu of his own… he would become a biological girl. As if he had always been one. Mind, body, and sexuality accommodate over time to meet this change.”

He finished softly, and everyone looked at Ichigo very carefully, as if waiting for him to respond.

Ichigo blinked. “But that’s not a problem, because I don’t have any of my own Shinigami powers. I’m a human with Rukia’s powers… Right?” he added forcefully when everyone winced.

“Yeah… About that…” Dad said uneasily, looking everywhere but at Ichigo.

 _“Dad.”_ Ichigo glared at his father.

“... Your parents… weren’t as human as you thought they were.” Dad winced. “That’s why… the three of you can see the dead.

“You… _do_ have your own reiatsu. It just has only been triggered by Rukia’s. And - I had no idea of this, by the way! - it turns out you’re one of the lucky ten percent. Your natural reiatsu _is_ female. _Yay!”_ He waved his hands around feebly, smiling uneasily.

“But… but that means…”

Everyone hesitated and waited for the fireworks as Ichigo’s eyes widened and it all hit him at once.

“NO!” Ichigo bolted from the bed, back in his human body and totally naked. 

_“Shit!”_ the red-headed boy shouted, looking away with his hand covering his eyes.

Ichigo sprinted into the nearest bathroom, slammed the door shut, locked it, and stared at himself in the bathroom mirror. “Holy fuck,” he said in horror, in a girl’s voice, low and smoky. A girl’s hand reached up and met a girl’s face. “Holy _fuck,”_ he repeated helplessly.

Some things remained the same. His hair was short, messy, and orange - albeit a bit softer, thicker, and wavier than before. His eyes were still brown, same shape. His skin tone was still relatively the same. And his face… was a heart… but it was a girl’s. Everything about him was female. And he was still tall and slim but -

And here he looked down.

This turned out to be a mistake.

Had the Urahara Shouten not been hidden by reiatsu, Ichigo’s scream could probably have been heard about three streets down.

-

Ichigo came back to himself a few minutes later curled up on the bathroom floor with somebody trying to pound the door in. “Relax,” he managed to wheeze out, half sitting upright. “I’m still fine in here.”

“Geez, Ichigo.” Rukia’s relieved voice could be heard. “You gave us a real scare.”

“Rukia…” Ichigo sat totally upright and tried to remain calm. His voice was unusually high now even for a girl’s. “Is there - is there anyway to reverse this process? Can I give you your powers back? I, uh… I don’t think I want them anymore.”

“First… you can’t give powers back. They fade over time. And second… uh, no? Your reiatsu’s already been activated. There’s really no turning back…” said Rukia uneasily from the other side of the door.

Ichigo just sat there in floored silence.

“But look, there are lots of advantages to being a girl!” said Rukia quickly, in a falsely cheerful voice. “Like -”

“We’re softer! We smell nicer! We have great racks!” Karin’s voice shouted immediately. “And you know that thing where a girl kicks you in the balls? Nobody can do that to you anymore! But you can totally do it to other people!”

“And we have so much better variety when it comes to fashion,” Yuzu sang. “We like hot guys! And especially in Japanese society, we’re so much more independent! All men do is work all the time, but women know how to raise families, get involved with society, cook and do housework, do first aid - and, in modern society, we can still work! This is literally supposed to be the age of the woman - feminism and all.”

“Girls are much more social and emotionally open according to much modern science,” said the timid voice of what must be the girl with the black pigtails. “They don’t have as many problems with anger and aggressive testosterone, can think things through better, and have a much more diverse sexual capability.”

“Girls tend to be more creative and critical thinking,” said Rukia wisely. “We tend not to think we’re as good at math, but honestly, who wants to do math? And we may be smaller, but we’re faster and more agile!”

“Also girls are sexy,” said Karin.

“That too!” said the other three eagerly.

“Look, a teacher once said this to me, he said,” said Rukia, “and this was a Shinigami. ‘Men, never get into a fight with a woman. When men fight, they have rules. When women fight -’”

“They have no rules.” Dad’s voice, sounding amused and thoughtful, reminiscent. “Yeah, I remember that one. I still take that advice.”

Ichigo took a deep breath, got up, wrapped a towel around… _herself?_ And walked out into the hallway, her eyes deadly. “Dad, I want an explanation,” she said icily. _“Now.”_

Dad winced but scratched at his head and admitted, “That’s… fair. Let’s all go sit back down. Here we go.”

They all sat slowly back down in the pallet room, cross legged in a circle.

“So… how did I get here? Who are these people?”

“They’re black marketers,” said Rukia. “Former Shinigami. Urahara and his Shouten: the pigtailed girl is Ururu, the red haired boy is Jinta, and the assistant with dreadlocks is Tessai. They realized something was wrong and came to help me.

“They put me in a fake body.” She waved to herself; she was now wearing a loose dress. “Because all my powers are gone - they’re inside you. Possibly for months. They healed your family and woke them up. They put your soul back in its body, which transformed upon impact… and they took you back to the Urahara Shouten in Karakura. That’s where you are right now.”

“And that’s about how much we know,” said Karin, totally lost. “What the hell happened last night?”

“Yes. I will need all the specifics,” said Urahara, standing serious and deadly in the background.

And so Rukia and Ichigo told their story. Ichigo talked about seeing ghosts all his life in tandem with a basic Japanese Buddhist concept of death, Rukia talked about trying to discover a source of enormous reiatsu upon being assigned to Karakura as a Shinigami, one of those spirits who traditionally sent the ghosts on to the Otherworld (called Soul Society). They met each other mostly through this happenstance. Rukia explained Shinigami and Hollows, both to Ichigo then and to the assembled now, then the Hollow she’d been tracking attacked the Kurosaki home.

Ichigo broke free of the kido spell and got in the way with his emotions and protective instincts, Rukia jumped in front of him to save him from a Hollow attack, and since she was too injured to fight Rukia gave her Shinigami powers to Ichigo. Ichigo defeated the Hollow, not realizing his physical transformation, and blacked out.

“So… Ichi-nee’s a Shinigami now?” said Karin curiously. Yuzu gasped in excitement.

“What?! I never agreed to that!” said Ichigo, panicked.

“Yeah, actually, you kind of did, kid,” said Dad bluntly. “What Rukia did for you, giving away her powers? It’s illegal. If you don’t figure out how to do her job until she recovers, she gets the ax.”

Ichigo looked over searchingly at Rukia, who looked away in quiet embarrassment.

“Besides,” Dad added bracingly, “it’s in your blood.”

“Yeah, about that.” Ichigo turned to his Dad with narrowed eyes. “Why do I have my own Shinigami powers? What did you mean about you and Mom not being… _human?”_

Rukia, Karin, and Yuzu turned to Ichigo’s Dad at this as well.

Dad sighed. “My… my given name is Isshin.” Rukia gasped. “Yeah.” Dad rolled his eyes. _“That_ Isshin. Kids, you don’t know this, but Shinigami have an ingrained nobility. I was head of the noble Shiba Clan in the Shinigami Soul Society’s Seireitei for… a long time. I was a Captain class Shinigami, the highest level you can have after Commander. I was also… a total flirt. Skirt chaser, that kinda thing.”

“Now _that_ I can see,” Karin muttered.

“I knew Rukia’s older brother - a fellow noble named Kuchiki Byakuya, much more serious and fiery than me, about my age but already freshly widowed. Married a commoner, if you can believe that. But Rukia was in the Academy and not adopted by the Kuchiki yet, so she never knew me. The two under me were Matsumoto Rangiku, Vice Captain of the Tenth Division, and Hitsugaya Toshiro - a young child prodigy who graduated Academy in six goddamn weeks. Third Seat of the Tenth Division. I’ve heard since that Matsumoto stayed where she was and Hitsugaya was made Captain. Kid always did expect too much of himself when it came to the people he cared about. Anyway…

“During a solo mission, I was saved by one of the remaining Quincy - a young woman. Sorry, Quincy were special humans who’d learned to use their spiritual powers to fight. This girl could use her reiatsu to make a giant bow and arrow. She was a Quincy Archer. That’s right,” he added, smiling. “Her name was Kurosaki Masaki.

“Instead of letting me die as a Shinigami Captain, she went against our natural rivalry and saved my life, was even injured while doing so - but she defeated the Hollow. We went our separate ways, but I couldn’t stop thinking about Masaki. She’d been tough, warm, funny, friendly, determined to pretend she wasn’t hurt. I went down in secret into the living world to see her again, not intending to stay… 

“But I saw her in the process of becoming a Hollow. A part of the Hollow was eating away from her injury to her core. The only way I could save her was by tying my well soul to hers… But in the process, both of us would lose all of our powers.

“Urahara helped. He tied our souls together, fashioned me a body - which my soul no longer rejected because I was no longer a Shinigami. And I never went back to my home. I had to find out later that my clan had been banished from Shinigami society, into the commoner’s quarters, because of me. My Division thought I’d defected, turned coward. Lots of people still probably haven’t forgiven me.

“... But you know what? We had a good life, your mother and I.” He smiled as he remembered it. “We gave birth to three kids, and of course they all had crazy powerful reiatsu - Ichigo, our eldest, the most of all, but Karin and Yuzu too. We dated through college, got married, had a family… and she died. She left us. But we still had good times. We still have good times, the four of us! Right?”

Ichigo looked solemn and sad. Karin looked serious, nodding silently. Yuzu was in tears.

“That’s right. It’s why your mother and I never told you anything - we wanted you to be human first. So.” Dad smiled rather whimsically. “I really can’t think of anything I regret. The last thing I expected was to become some widower human mourning a great lost love and doing the single father thing, but I suppose I can surprise even myself.

“And that’s the story. Your mother… she’d have wanted to be here to tell it with me. She saved me and I saved her. It was reciprocal. Yeah?”

He looked at Ichigo meaningfully.

“I saved the girl,” he said, “but the girl also saved me. We were even.”

Ichigo looked downward, puzzled and reluctantly thoughtful.

“Wait, so why aren’t you a Shinigami again?” said Karin suddenly. “Mom’s… she’s gone, right?”

“Yeah. I have, oh, I’d say another… two seasons as a human,” Dad agreed cheerfully. “Then my powers come back.” He smiled.

Yuzu cheered. Ichigo smiled reluctantly despite himself. “Geez, Yuzu, you get so excited,” said Karin, amused but exasperated.

“That’s right, my daughter!” Isshin suddenly boomed, becoming theatrical and joking again, throwing a fist in the air.

“Oh God,” said Ichigo flatly.

“I now have another daughter and love conquers all and together we shall -!” Isshin charged toward Yuzu, who screamed and sprinted out of the room. They could be heard thundering down the hall.

“So all the Shiba are like that,” Rukia realized absently, looking after them.

“Huh? You knew some of my relatives?” Ichigo asked curiously.

“Oh… yes.” Rukia blushed and looked down, surprising Ichigo. “There was… I’d just been adopted as a commoner by the Kuchiki, by Kuchiki Byakuya, and I was feeling very lonely because everyone treated me differently. But then I entered the Thirteenth Division, and - this guy who must be your father’s cousin - Shiba Kaien… He was my Vice Captain. And he was great!” She sat forward eagerly. “Just like your father! He was warm and funny and open and direct, and he had this beautiful wife, and he was really powerful, and I looked up to him a lot. I called him Kaien-dono.”

“Well, I’ll have to meet him someday,” said Ichigo, smiling uneasily.

But Rukia looked down quietly. The Urahara Shouten had gone suspiciously silent and only Karin looked as confused as Ichigo felt.

“... He died, didn’t he?” said Karin suddenly, looking closely into Rukia’s face.

“... Yes,” Rukia whispered. “His wife, also a Shinigami, was killed by a Hollow. He went after it to avenge her honor. And… they all have different abilities… it could take people over… it took _him_ over…”

“He asked you to kill him to save him,” said Ichigo softly, realizing. “So that he didn’t hurt anyone he cared about.”

Rukia looked up, white as a sheet. “How did you know -?!”

“Because,” said Ichigo softly, sympathetic, “that’s what I’d have done. And he’s my cousin.” She smiled painfully.

Rukia stared at Ichigo with big eyes. “... I’m sorry!” she said suddenly, leaning forward. “I’ve never gotten to say it to a member of his family before, I’ve never had the guts to look them in the eye, but you all are so amazing and I’m sorry I -!” Her voice was trembling.

“It’s okay, Rukia, geez.” Ichigo was smiling. Rukia paused in surprise. “Don’t you get it? You did him a really big favor. The biggest one anyone could. I mean, if we’re talking about _me…”_

Ichigo looked down.

“Dieing is horrible,” she whispered. “But hurting someone I cared about because some stupid Hollow told me to is even more horrible.”

“You did the only thing you could, kid,” said Karin evenly, tough but sympathetic. “We all did the only thing we could - right back to Rukia and Dad, right through till last night. We all just do the best we can.”

“Correct.” Everyone looked around. Isshin had walked back in, smiling softly. “I heard everything,” he told a stricken Rukia, hands in his pockets. He looked at the ceiling. “Kaien was a good kid,” he said. “And it sounds like he died the way every Shinigami wants to.”

Rukia bowed low. “... Thank you,” she whispered.

“Now.” Isshin walked up. “Will you help me with my kid? I think she needs a little coaching - in how to be a Shinigami, yeah, but also in how to be a woman. We’ve gotta figure this out.”

“Y-yes!” said Rukia suddenly, straightening, apparently feeling even more loyalty to the Shiba name than she did toward the Shinigami - especially after hearing Isshin’s story. “Ichigo… if it’s any consolation.” She winced. “This is considered normal in the Soul Society. Nobody judges. Changes like this are considered natural. You’d just be taken as you are and treated as a woman.”

“That’s great, Rukia,” said Ichigo heavily, suddenly _tired._ “But I’m not in the Soul Society. I grew up in my mother’s world, where sex changes are judged a _lot.”_

“So. Damage control!” Urahara sang, snapping his fan shut. Everyone jumped. “We’ll be chipping in and helping as former Shinigami just like everyone else! Operation Make Ichigo A Shinigami Woman has commenced! To that end, can I make a few suggestions?”

“... That’d be fucking amazing,” said Ichigo wearily. “Because I have _no idea_ what to do.”

“We will give you a week to recover,” said Urahara. “Here at the Shouten. Amongst other things, you will pick out a new female name for yourself, reassess your fashion and interests, learn more about being female, and start Shinigami training plans with everyone. I recommend you start with all basics mastered by non seated Shinigami officers. The Shouten is open to you, I am open to you, as is your father and Rukia. I’m in the process of calling Yoruichi back in as well. As a former noble lady Shinigami, she should be able to help.”

“We can take care of anything around the house and cover for you,” said Yuzu helpfully, as Karin bumped Ichigo encouragingly in the shoulder. “We might even be able to teach you some of the nursing and cooking stuff we do!” Ichigo smiled uncertainly, bewildered.

“You then go back to school and meet your old friends with a note from the old Ichigo, who has transferred schools. His new female cousin, with a brand new name, has switched schools and towns with him and is now living with the old Ichigo’s family. Get it?”

He raised an eyebrow.

“... Yeah,” said Ichigo cautiously, frowning, still feeling very awkward in… _her_ new body. “I get it. But this is going to take a long time getting used to.”

“It always does,” said Urahara casually. “My, you truly are remarkable, Kurosaki-san. Not only are you a female ten percenter and an unheard of Quincy-Shinigami hybrid…

“But out of all three, you came out the oldest and the strongest. You have a lot going for you.”


	2. Chapter 2

Ichigo looked down at the black cat standing on the old-fashioned shop’s doorstep. He was scowling, bewildered, a tick going in his temple.

 _“... This cat_ is the Shinigami noblewoman?” he asked. “Shihouin Yoruichi?” He looked over at Urahara. “My Dad’s world is a little weird, isn’t it?”

“... Well…” Urahara looked sheepish and amused.

Suddenly, the cat transformed into a busty naked woman. “Hey!” she snapped, totally casual in the nude. “Don’t judge!”

 _“Goddamnit -!”_ Ichigo whirled around and put his hand over his eyes.

“Huh. She really is a pretty new ten percenter, isn’t she?” said Yoruichi’s voice with casual curiosity, and wasn’t that weird, hearing himself called a “she” every single time he was mentioned?

“Yoruichi.” Urahara sounded fond but exasperated. “You do have to put at least _some_ clothes on.”

“Fine, fine…” Yoruichi sighed.

-

Shihouin Yoruichi turned out to be a woman in a tight sweater and dark leggings with deep coffee colored skin, a dark purple ponytail of hair, and golden eyes like a cat’s. She was pretty, though Ichigo could admit to himself that weirdly enough, he didn’t feel the same overt attraction for her that he might once have.

He sat across from her on tatami as she ate a bowl of food. She was watching him as she ate.

“So,” she said, putting down the bowl once she’d finished. “Why the sudden interest in being a Shinigami?”

“Uh… what?” Ichigo blinked. No one had asked him that yet.

“Let me give you some background on myself. I used to be the head of the noble Shihouin Clan before I abandoned the Seireitei alongside Urahara. Mostly out of some misplaced sense of loyalty,” said Yoruichi bluntly.

Urahara laughed uneasily from off to the side.

“I know that feel,” said Tessai, deadpan.

“Urahara was head of science, Tessai head of kido or spells, and I was head of the ninja sector. Second Division. Captain class, like your father. Unlike your father, I still have my powers. So why should I help you?” Ichigo stared. “I think it’s a valid question,” said Yoruichi toughly, sitting back. “Why not just go back to being a human girl, wait for the Shinigami powers to fade away?”

“Because - because that’d be a shitty thing to do!” said Ichigo heatedly, sitting forward. “Rukia would get killed for helping me! My Dad’s counting on me!”

“So you’re just doing it for other people?” Yoruichi tilted her head.

Ichigo paused.

“Well… in some ways. I gained the power in the first place for other people,” said Ichigo slowly. “So I could save my family from the Hollow. And, maybe, make up for my stupid actions in one sense. I never have been very good at sitting on the sidelines.”

“Does that carry over into helping strangers? Or are you just interested in protecting your family?”

“I think… I think if I knew something was going wrong and someone needed my help, I wouldn’t be able to keep myself from helping them,” said Ichigo, confused, speaking slowly. “Even back when I could just see ghosts… I never could turn away someone who said they needed my help in finding peace. It got me in some trouble. But… that’s just who I am.”

“The role of Shinigami comes with some constraints,” Yoruichi said.

“Yeah, well, so does anything else in important in life,” said Ichigo bluntly. “Honestly, who gives a shit?”

Yoruichi smiled. “Good answers. Alright,” she sighed, turning to Urahara, “I’ll help her out. Maybe me and Kuchiki can make a noblewoman out of her yet.”

-

Ichigo’s first job was to find a new name. “If you call yourself by that name,” Urahara suggested, “in your own head, it might help you get a better sense of your new identity anyway. Think of yourself with your new name and new gender at the same time.”

So Ichigo decided to try it. After all, how often did a grown person get to choose their own name?

Ururu came in shyly with a big pile of name books and he read through them all, caught in concentration, paging through so quickly it seemed to surprise the other members of the Shouten. He absorbed himself in almost total silence, choosing the name carefully.

He eventually chose the name Kyoko. He liked the sound of it: Kyoko, or Kurosaki Kyoko. He thought it fit his personality. But he also liked its meaning: “mirror.” Mirrors reflected everything opposite to what it originally had been.

Kyoko thought this was a good name for a ten percenter.

Once she’d chosen the name, everyone “in the know” was informed and Urahara even had paperwork forged so that Kurosaki Kyoko existed. Kurosaki Ichigo _did_ exist but was absent; Kurosaki Kyoko now existed alongside him.

She liked that. Call her a sentimental sap, but she liked the idea of the older male self from the first fifteen years of her life still being out there somewhere. She didn’t tell anyone else about these confused feelings she had.

-

All the girls mainly led her through many parts of the intervening process. First came fashion. “You need to have a look,” Rukia decided. “Kurosaki Kyoko not only looking but dressing like Kurosaki Ichigo would be a dead giveaway to your friends.”

Sometimes Rukia knew just how to say things in a way that made perfect sense.

The first thing they taught Kyoko how to do was shave - underarms and legs. It wasn’t really new to her, men shaved as well, though she did say, _“Damn,_ there’s a lot of skin to cover when you’re shaving like a woman.”

“Buck up and deal with it,” said Rukia flatly as she stood over her in the tub, hands on her hips. 

Maybe Kyoko should have felt weird, shaving like a woman, but she _looked_ like a woman so somehow it didn’t have the same impact. Yuzu also insisted she try one of her scented body washes. Kyoko felt extremely embarrassed and girly while she was using it in the shower, but she had to admit to herself - she _did_ smell nice afterward.

After that, they took her out shopping. First came trying on bras in the dressing room. Ichigo went for the smaller sizes, on pretty much everyone’s recommendation - she was taller and slimmer than she was busty - but she couldn’t figure out how to get the bras on once she was alone in the dressing room.

“This is _so weird,”_ she muttered to herself, blushing, half naked and just _staring_ at the bra in her hands. She was still kind of in denial over having lady parts, which didn’t help.

“Everything okay in there?” Yoruichi called from outside, sounding amused.

“Yes!” Kyoko called desperately, red-faced and embarrassed, and she tried to figure out how to put the bra on for herself. This didn’t go well.

“Goddamnit!” she finally shouted, tangled up in a bra that wasn’t even close to being put on correctly. “This fucking thing has a million straps and like ten hooks and none of them are put in the places that make any _fucking_ sense whatsoever, and _do boobs always just get everywhere?!_ I swear to God! I roll over onto my stomach and my boobs hurt! I run into something and what’s the first thing I hit? _My boobs!”_

She stood there, tangled and red faced, breathing heavily and infuriated. There was silence outside the dressing room for a moment.

“Karin, Yuzu, Rukia,” said Yoruichi at last, who was all business and in charge. “You’re up. I think she needs help.”

“No! I don’t want my sisters to see me like this, it would scar them for life!” Kyoko insisted.

“Onee-chan, we know what female bodies look like. We have them,” Yuzu sighed.

“Yeah, and also, we already saw you in this form naked? At the Shouten before you woke up. We’re _already_ scarred for life,” Karin insisted.

Kyoko sighed. “... Okay,” she muttered. “I need help.”

So Karin, Yuzu, and Rukia came in and taught Kyoko about how to put on bras correctly - and female underwear while they were at it. Yoruichi even gave her some “boob tips” from outside the dressing room.

Yoruichi and Ururu’s main job, however, was to keep people from getting too close to the dressing room and hearing what was going on inside. “Hey. What are you looking at? Keep moving,” Yoruichi’s voice could be heard. “You see this girl? This little fucking pigtailed girl? Yeah. She would kick your _ass._ Keep moving.”

Tiny little timid Ururu just stood there and sighed.

Once bras, underwear, and boobs were taken care of, next came fashion itself. Kyoko had to pick out clothes. For this, her father - who was after all a doctor - paid the extra money to take her to a professional fashion consultant.

“I want my look to be sophisticated but avant garde,” said Kyoko, the moment they entered the fashion consultant’s office, which was surrounded by standalone mirrors and racks of clothes. “What?” she added when everybody else stared at her. “I didn’t know anything about girl clothes! So I did some research. The Internet is a miraculous thing.”

“Ah, a tomboy transformed into a woman, eh?” The consultant’s eyes gleamed from behind the counter and Kyoko swallowed nervously. _“Excellent.”_

Avant garde’s general tone was black and professional, which Kyoko had been counting on. Avant garde women saw clothes as wearable art rather than simple clothing. Lots of playing with shapes and proportions was done with avant garde, there were many asymmetrical hemlines and pieces with lots of volume, and though the main color tone was black, whites, bright colors, and even metallics were also used sparingly. Sophisticated menswear was common with avant garde women, even to the point of wearing full pantsuits. Most accessories were statements and fashion-forward.

“The whole tone of the avant garde wardrobe is meant to be sleek and balanced,” the fashion consultant said.

As examples, her first couple of outfits put sort of risque blouses in dark or vividly colored shades with black business skirts and pants, sometimes with a big belt or other piece of fancy accessory like a shiny bracelet or watch. She chose a slim, gleaming black handbag, which somehow managed to “say nothing while saying everything.” Her dresses were mostly asymmetrical cuts “softened with slight feminine accents.” Other outfits, like a muted colored jacket and unusually baggy pant together, had a clean, modern, futuristic feel with modern lines. Also in her new wardrobe: bold blouses with slim jeans, the “necessary statement maxi dress with a long drape,” and a micro mini sweater dress in a soft muted color.

She looked at herself transformed in the mirror at the end. “Wow,” she whispered, almond shaped amber brown eyes widening as she stared at herself in the mirror. “I’m… pretty.” Immediately she blushed and looked away, scowling, trying to ignore the secretive, triumphant smiles the other girls in her group were giving each other.

“What’s your name, girl?” said the fashion consultant, all business, holding up a clipboard.

“I… Kyoko,” said Kyoko, blinking. “Kurosaki Kyoko.”

And she ran the card her Dad had given her through the machine. _Cha-ching!_

Next came haircut. “Girls have short, messy hair,” said Kyoko, puzzled and curious, as this was announced during their walk down a Tokyo city street laden down with shopping bags.

“Yeah, but not cut like that. You need a new short hairdo,” said Yoruichi.

“But - I don’t know how girl hair looks. I didn’t look that up,” said Kyoko, worried.

Ururu tugged on her sleeve. “Magazines,” she murmured. “That’s why so many haircut magazines are in hair salons. Pick out something short that goes with a heart shaped face.”

“Ah!” Kyoko perked up thoughtfully. “That’s right… You know.” She made a face. “People at this place are going to comment over my orange hair. I hate that,” she muttered.

“I don’t know. Girls with dyed hair aren’t seen as quite as threatening as guys,” said Yoruichi, amused. “A little more exotic than scary. You might like this. I think it could surprise you.”

They walked in and the hairdressers were immediately welcoming. “Wow, look at that lovely hair!” They all crowded around; one woman even made to touch it.

Kyoko was utterly bewildered. “Er… thanks?” Yoruichi was smiling.

“Is that dyed?!”

“Uh… no. It’s all natural.”

“Wow, you’re so lucky!” They got stars in their eyes. “With those eyes, that hair, and that golden skin tone, you’re definitely an Autumn,” one old woman said wisely. “In complexion, I mean.”

“Yeah. I, uh… I need a good, short haircut for a heart shaped face.” Kyoko scratched at the side of her head sheepishly. “You think you could help me pick one out?”

She jumped at the collective squeal of excitement.

They ended up choosing a fringed pixie haircut. A bit boyish but still a girl’s cut, heavy bangs with a slimmer side, tousled look went with the mess and curled it into soft waves instead of going against it, and “your delicate chin looks really good with this haircut,” said the woman who ended up washing and cutting her hair, smiling kindly.

Yuzu had been right. There _was_ a lot more variety. And for some reason, in this arena at least, the people seemed to be nicer.

Looking at her finished style, Kyoko realized she liked her new name and she liked how she looked, which she supposed was an important first step.

But even she wasn’t quite prepared for the last item on the list: makeup.

“Some girls don’t wear makeup,” she said uncertainly as they headed down the street to the next shop. “Can’t I just be one of those girls?”

“The only reason you’re saying that is because you’re used to being a guy - and staying in stasis will not help you at all,” said Yoruichi toughly.

“Look, just try it,” said Yuzu soothingly.

“Yeah. If you don’t like it, you don’t have to wear it again,” Rukia pointed out, shrugging. “But you might surprise yourself.”

“And you at least have to know how to put it on,” said Karin. “Trust me, you have _no idea_ as someone who’s used to being a guy - no idea how weird it’s going to look for a teenage girl to one day say she has no idea how to put on makeup.”

So Kyoko decided to try it. She looked like a girl, she decided, glancing around furtively as if someone might catch her out. And what could one time hurt, right?

Ururu was surprisingly perfect in this role. Alongside the woman at the makeup counter, she was soft spoken and patient, walking a confused and uncertain Kyoko through the necessary makeup application steps in the little provided mirror. (What the hell? She could beat the shit out of five guys but she didn’t know how to apply mascara? How had she spent her entire life missing this lesson?)

She went full tilt and chose the classy pin-up makeup look: black eye makeup and red lips. They even taught her how to take care of her eyebrows, something she hadn’t actually known women did. They also taught her how to choose makeup tones that went naturally with her eyebrows, skin, and eyes.

“That’s… actually not bad,” she admitted, impressed, standing back to look at herself. The classy makeup went well with the sophisticated black-toned avant garde clothes, the gleaming accessories, and the boyish, tousled girl’s haircut. The look in general went well with her slimmer, taller body structure. Slowly, she unfurled her eyebrows in the mirror and went with more of a calm, reserved expression, not a scowl but a look of calm with a lot of intensity behind it.

… Yeah. That was better.

“I’ll take the lot,” she said firmly, turning back to the triumphant woman at the makeup counter and pulling out her card. Kyoko’s transformation was complete.

-

Lucky her, she experienced the first days of her first period that very week.

“Congratulations!” said Yoruichi brightly as she and Rukia stood in the doorway of the Shouten’s bathroom. Kyoko was curled over in pain, clutching her stomach, blood on her underwear. “You can have babies!”

 _“Fabulous,”_ Kyoko gasped out, snarling.

So they had to do damage control in that arena as well. Kyoko learned all the ups and downs of menstruating - the mood swings that mostly made her yell a lot, anger easily, and throw shit. The crippling cramps for the first couple of days. The having to wear protection for _just_ longer than seemed manageable or necessary. The thinking you were done and then not being done. The having to mark every thirty days on your phone calendar.

 _All_ of it.

All the women banded together again to teach her tips and tricks. The pills that made going about your day manageable. The humiliation of being _shown_ how to use pads and tampons. All the little rules.

But they also taught her comfort indulgence techniques to use during her period - things that made each woman feel better, that made the periods easier to bear. Kyoko learned that heating pads over the belly helped, as did fluffy pillows, long soaks in a scented bath, hot tea, and chocolate.

She had a whole new respect for women.

Finally, the girls organized a sleepover at the Shouten. “All girls have to know what sleepovers are like,” Karin, of all people, mandated.

Kyoko had been exasperated and skeptical, but girl sleepovers turned out to be fun. She was taught how to paint and manicure her nails, a random skill she never thought she’d learn that she became slightly addicted to. They all sat in a circle with pillows and nightgowns, snacked, played games of Truth or Dare, and chatted. Kyoko found this kind of socializing and chatting easier than she’d thought she would. They did talk about guys, which she found awkward because she couldn’t relate at _all._

“Don’t worry. You’re still new in development. You’ll get there,” said Yoruichi. Somehow this was not exactly comforting to someone who still had memories of being a macho teenage boy.

Though that _was_ how she was starting to think of Kurosaki Ichigo now, and wasn’t that weird? As a macho teenage boy.

They ended with a pillow fight and lots of laughter, chasing each other around the Shouten. Kyoko felt awkward and embarrassed until Karin surprise attacked her with a pillow. Then her competitiveness kicked in.

She ended up chasing Karin around the Shouten brandishing a pillow as Karin screamed.

One useful thing Kyoko learned from the sleepover? That she was better at the tough, fiery but kind of joking, exasperated but fun older sister aura around other girls or just general uncertainty. She added that knowledge to her more reserved and calm but intense, more feminine basic demeanor.

She still felt like a guy a lot of the time. But she was slowly adjusting on a broader level.

-

Another thing both Urahara and her father insisted she do was bedroom redecoration. “Can’t that just stay the same?” Kyoko wondered, frowning. “I don’t see how that affects my gender identity.”

“Say a friend comes over or gets to know you better,” Dad pointed out. “Wouldn’t it be weird for Ichigo’s cousin to have all the same interests and be living in the exact same bedroom with the exact same room decorations?”

“Consider this an update,” Urahara suggested.

On Tessai’s recommendation - quiet though he was, Tessai the spells expert who was perfect in reiatsu control was surprisingly well organized - she made a list of stuff she already liked. Then she tried new stuff each evening before bed on her pallet at the Shouten and updated.

Some things simply became emphasized. She got more into her love of spicy food and chocolate, picking up quirks that Ichigo hadn’t had. She started carrying a bottle of hot sauce around with her for her meals, decided she loved Thai food takeout, and bought a carton of chocolate ice cream for comfort eating in front of the TV when she felt down. Deciding to take Yuzu’s advice and get more socially involved, she turned on normal days to healthy eating as well as more organic and moralistic forms of eating. Having gotten into hot tea during the first days of her period, she became a tea fanatic and started taking classes in tea ceremony from Tessai. 

As she had suspected they might, the techniques learned in tea ceremony together with her female neurological makeup also helped her not lose her temper quite as much or as badly the way Ichigo had. Kyoko was still somewhat short tempered, but not as much so and not as aggressive or macho while it was happening. 

Another randomass thing tea ceremony classes helped with was female kimono wearing, which she hadn’t known how to do before but apparently should because her father’s afterlife world was a weird combination of ultra-modern and _very_ feudal Japan. She chose lots of Autumn patterns and colors in kimono - colors like cream, gold, orange, bronze, brown; patterns like falling leaves or branches. Decorations for kimono wearing were especially pretty, lots of turquoise and ivory and gold in lovely patterns, which was a very girly thought but fuck it she was a girl.

“I love shiny things,” she informed her father once.

“God help me and my wallet,” Dad responded, turning a page of the newspaper without looking up. Kyoko wrinkled her nose in something like laughter. 

On the note of traditional Japan, she reassessed more Japanese forms of entertainment. She found she liked them better, more because she was no longer a snotty junior high school student than because she was a girl.

Other changes? She did still like punk music, but started reading feminist literature and decided she liked it for the feminist element. (The books helped her decide to keep her low, smoky voice the way it was, not use a high, girlish traditional voice and hesitant pronouns. She did feel weird swearing and slanging in a girl’s voice, though, so she started using more sophisticated speech. Blunt yet sophisticated - that was what she went for.) She dedicated herself to more concerts, on the element of music, dedicating herself to becoming the reserved, sophisticated girl in black with the boyish haircut in the back of the show.

And she discovered new kinds of music, particularly new female artists. She discovered she liked dream pop, art pop, synth pop, and darkwave; through synth pop, she learned she liked electropunk. In general, darker, dreamier, and more electronic forms of music became her newest thing. She bought a set of gigantic black headphones.

Ichigo had played the guitar because Chad had showed him, but never shown much interest or gotten very far. So she switched over to piano and classical music, as well as poetry writing. Shakespeare, she had decided, was still safe enough to like - but she turned on that note to other kinds of poetry (controversial or depressing female poets writing about social subjects were her favorite, and what she emulated) and more literature, more books. She learned she _loved_ books, and took to reading in public - and getting interrupted by annoying guys a lot.

Romances, she decided, were girly. So she indulged herself in sobbing over lots of sappy movies and fairy tales with ice cream, turning eventually to darkly romantic, almost Gothic forms of film. Her crying phase ended - she got it all out of the way with and decided she didn’t like crying, especially not in front of others - but her romantic phase never did. Even before she felt sexual attraction, she formed an emotional and aesthetic attraction to romance, particularly the dark and the Gothic. 

She took her love of gritty crime drama over into a love of snacking shamelessly through dark horror and an enjoyment of weird cult movies. She formed a few favorite actresses, mostly reserved, avant-garde, mannish and intense women who reflected her own new outlook. They tended to do lots of social and historical dramas as well as some _super_ out there indie movies, so she came to like those as well.

Her dorkiness stayed (as did her love for the city, which if anything only increased). She became an avid sci fi gamer. She still liked comics and manga, though she formed a new love for darker comics with more intellectual messages and for those which reflected the lives of strong or interesting female characters. With all the feminist reading she was doing, she formed a _lot_ of opinions.

Women, she had decided, did _not_ get enough credit for being awesome. As a former guy who she felt hadn’t given women enough credit for being awesome, she was determined to rectify this. Ichigo had always been a bit of a revolutionary, more intelligent than he seemed, and especially with two younger sisters and an easygoing, loving father who’d married a strong mother, this carried over into Kyoko. Calmer now, she wore her independent intelligence proudly.

Bedroom redecoration became her father’s other big expenditure. Kyoko did research, as she had with fashion, and chose to redecorate with minimal fuss and clutter. She hated things everywhere but loved the sophisticated, airy feel of having lots of clean lines and neat, empty space. She equipped her bedroom with lots of fancy high tech gadgets, from a new silver laptop and eccentric smartphone holder to a new surround sound speaker system and a miniature TV in the corner. She chose neutrals and sophisticated colors like indigo and burgundy, a low set bed with black sheeting and lovely gold pillows, velvet curtains, and she decorated her bedside tables with scented candles. Tailored bedding, various textures, and limited accessories finished her look - no patterns allowed. Reflecting her name, an ornate mirror conversation piece stood on her bedroom wall by the TV.

Her new clothes and accessories went in the room, including a few pairs of black shoes with various kinds of heels from blocky platform to chunky to more slender. _(Shoe shopping though. It was so addicting.)_ More new fashion and wash stuff went in the bathroom. Her new hobbies were reflected in the bedroom, a miniature black piano was put in the corner by the window, and it was Kyoko’s. She moved back in.

Rukia took the spare bedroom in the house, the one next to Kyoko’s, so she could be near Kyoko at all times with her Hollow alerter. She began dressing in living world clothes and having meals with the Kurosakis as well as sleeping with them. They included her in all warm love and fun; knowing they were Kaien’s family, she was for once eager to be included.

-

Some things she did all week long. Two of those things were: Learn how to cook, bake, and nurse with Karin and Yuzu. Learn Soul Society noblewoman related things with Yoruichi and Rukia.

The lessons with Karin and Yuzu were full of mishaps.

“Why is it burning?! It’s on fire! Why is it on fire?!” Kyoko ended up shrieking, running around the kitchen holding the pot in mitted hands.

“Aah! Quick, someone put it out before the fire alarms go off!” Yuzu was squealing.

Karin finally shot at the pot with a fire extinguisher and ended up also shooting a deadpan and glaring Kyoko.

But Kyoko did learn the basics to cooking meals, mostly just following recipes from their Mom’s old cookbook. She learned curiously the different techniques to making not only food but baked goods well, and the surprised delight to finding them finished correctly in the oven.

“Hey!” she’d make sure to tell everyone proudly, brightening. “I did that!”

Yuzu told her cooking and baking could also be used as a method of stress relief. “It helps to have something to take your mind off of what’s troubling you,” she confided.

Nursing was more uncertainty than anything. First Kyoko felt very awkward in her new nurse’s uniform. “Stand up more confidently!” Karin barked, and Kyoko straightened instinctively, still nervous.

“I know I’m going to mess this up…” she muttered as she followed Karin and Yuzu through the hospital for her first ‘shadowing’ day.

But they had her do plenty of hands-on stuff right from the beginning, and though Kyoko was very under-confident and apologetic, wincing as she roped each bandage under close supervision… she found slowly to her surprise that she _was_ capable of first aid and she _was_ capable of being gentle. Slowly, she found a kind of casual calm and even joy in working at the hospital, helping other people in a totally different way than fighting.

She began doing the same more feminine duty shifts around the home that her sisters did, though less of them as she was busier. Her family mostly let her come and go in that arena when she was free. She found a closeness to her little sisters that she hadn’t had before.

Her noblewoman lessons with Yoruichi and Rukia were a bit different.

Yoruichi and Rukia were both stern and tough, but fair, and they taught Kyoko how to act the same way. Most of their lessons focused on adding grace, etiquette, and poise to her calm, blunt, intense reserve and her fire. She found herself shaped and tempered where before she’d been raw and emotional.

They also taught her an enormous amount about the Soul Society and Shinigami themselves, lots of details she hadn’t known before, in order to teach her the rules of Soul Society nobility. Kyoko thought some of it was bullcrap and wasn’t afraid to say so.

“I think the same,” Yoruichi admitted, as Rukia stared in genuine surprise at Yoruichi. “But you have to know the rules in order to purposefully break them.”

-

She finalized her Shinigami training plans during her time off, following Urahara’s advice and learning all basics for non seated officers. So each graduated Shinigami had something to teach, and she was shown the gigantic underground training room under the Urahara Shouten where she’d be learning after school - with Rukia as her assistant always nearby in case of Shinigami alerts.

Tessai would fittingly be teaching kido and reiatsu control. “I will be helping you find, move, and access all your reiatsu. Since you’re a Shiba, I know just what to do with you,” he said enigmatically. Kyoko had no idea what that meant, but she said okay.

Yoruichi would be teaching hand to hand, stealth, kendo, and the beginning steps to speed that should eventually lead to Flash Step.

Urahara would be teaching reiatsu science, more practical work-related and historical Shinigami lessons, and the beginning steps that should eventually lead to zanpakuto release. “You’ll find some historical aspects of the Shinigami to be a little… squicky,” he warned. “We try our best, but we _are_ all powerful gods.”

Rukia would be teaching Konso and soul grief and comfort counseling, as well as reiatsu sensing.

Isshin would be teaching Hollow hunting techniques and practices, with help from Urahara in temporary Sight.

“You have about a week to get settled with and begin your Shinigami training and new relationships with your old friends at school before I predict the next big Hollow will come around,” Urahara told her. “So the whole timeline is actually settling out quite nicely.”

“I’ll be coming with you to school as well as home and training,” said Rukia smoothly. “As another new transfer student. Of course.”

She held up the Hollow alert phone, smirking.

Not for the first or last time, privately, Kyoko wished her mother were here. Not only did she want to talk to her about being a woman… she wanted to talk to her about how it felt starting training to become a female fighter. And she wanted to ask her mother if it was okay if no one was giving her Quincy training.

She wanted to say all that. But she couldn’t. Her mother was gone.

-

Jinta had been avoiding Kyoko all week, and he came out very reluctantly, glaring at the ground, red-faced and angry and gruff, on the day Kyoko was to leave the Urahara Shouten and head back home before school started again - in her brand new and very weird feeling female school uniform.

“Hey, Jinta,” she said curiously, “can I ask. What’s up with you?”

“He has a crush,” said Ururu with stunning honesty, and Jinta immediately whirled around and began yanking on her pigtails, looking highly indignant. Ururu began wailing. “Aaah, I was just trying to help -!”

“Jinta, stop,” Urahara sighed, getting between them, as Tessai calmly lifted Jinta up by the collar.

“Don’t be a little shitbag, shitbag,” said Yoruichi from off to the side, looking unimpressed as Jinta stuck out his tongue.

“Jinta… has a crush… on me?” Kyoko asked uncertainly. She and Jinta stared at each other - Kyoko uncertainly, Jinta suspiciously. She felt like she should be nice to him, but this would just feel so super awkward…

Jinta had been put back on the ground. Finally, Kyoko sucked it up and took a deep breath. She was going to be nice to the little brat. She walked up, embarrassed and uncertain and red-faced, leaned down - and gave him a quick, sisterly kiss on the cheek.

Then she leaped back, flustered. “That’s - that’s really nice,” she admitted, looking away. And she was being honest. It _was_ nice, feeling someone liked her - even if Jinta was just a kid.

She looked around - and stared in surprise. Jinta had beamed, gazing up at her in adoring, starry-eyed awe. His previous brattiness was gone without a trace. Then he puffed up his chest with a feeling Kyoko recognized from her time being a boy - the feeling of wanting to do something very male and impressive.

“Okay, come on!” she told Rukia quickly, yanking her away down the street before Jinta could do something too humiliating. Rukia yelped, then began walking beside her more normally as the Urahara Shouten stared after them in amusement.

“So,” said Rukia slyly, “you and Jinta -”

Kyoko was very red faced. “Shut up,” she muttered. “I was just being nice.”

They made the walk back toward the Kurosaki house, and paused. The booming voice of her father, Karin’s sarcasm, and Yuzu’s terrified shrieks could be heard all the way down the block. Kyoko stopped and smiled softly. “Some things still haven’t changed,” she said with fond exasperation. “We’re the loudest people on this street.”

“Yes. Come on,” said Rukia. “We have school tomorrow.” Kyoko felt a jump of nerves at the reminder.

“How do you think my old friends will react to the new me?” she wondered solemnly aloud to Rukia.

“I think if they don’t like the new you… they were never really your friends in the first place,” said Rukia, quietly but honestly. “Be careful, though, Kyoko. If they’re real friends, they might hate losing the original you.”

Kyoko stopped. She hadn’t thought of this. “So what do I -?”

“You just do what you can to show them you’re a friend as you are now,” said Rukia simply.

And they walked down the road toward the Kurosaki home together.


	3. Chapter 3

Kyoko got up early the morning of her first day as a schoolgirl - not out of any nerdy eagerness, but just because she had some paperwork to fill out for the school to hand over in the front office when she reached campus. Rukia sat beside her at the Kurosaki family kitchen table, eating breakfast while she worked.

Kyoko paused at the next question: _Birth Date._ She almost wrote July 15, but that wasn’t her birthday anymore, was it? Kyoko and Ichigo couldn’t have the exact same birth date, it would look weird, and in any case Urahara had on her forged paperwork given her new birthday as the day she became a girl, first became Kyoko: April 3.

Kyoko supposed it figured. Her name didn’t mean “one and five” anymore either.

Finally, she wrote down the new birth date: _April 3._ She paused as she felt a weird - shift inside her body. “Ah,” said Rukia without looking away from her food, “you just acknowledged your new birthday, didn’t you? Whatever birthday you acknowledge affects your personality and reiatsu energies.”

“You’re telling me all that astrology crap is _valid?”_ Kyoko asked with quiet disbelief.

“Well, the future predictions are debatable. But the energy readings? Largely,” said Rukia. She was still casual, not looking away from her bowl.

Once she’d finished the paperwork, over breakfast Kyoko then read through readings on the two astrology signs on her laptop in morbid fascination. As she had before, she turned to the Internet. What exactly were the differences between Cancer, her old sign, and Aries, her new one?

Ichigo’s sign, Cancer, struck her as a very emotional sign. Cardinal Water, it was both focused on the connections to the people around it and motivated by the need to act. Home and family were very important to Cancer (it was a motherly sign) as were the past and sentimentality. Cancer could also be irritable and clingy, and tended to hide parts of itself away out of hidden sensitivity. Ichigo’s tough-guy machoness and protective instincts could both be seen at play here, as could his grasping onto the memory of his mother.

Aries was also motivated by the need to act but more motivated by the personal journey and the need for individuality. Cardinal Fire, Ariens wanted to pioneer, lead, go their own path, and their sign represented “the spark of energy that signified new life.” (Appropriately, Kyoko supposed, given the circumstances.) They were full of impatient energy, wanted adventure, and seemed to be more optimistic than Cancer. They challenged, experienced, explored, and sometimes rushed into things. They were competitive, rebellious, independent, and innovative. Aries was honest, sometimes cripplingly blunt, and it could be self centered but only in wanting to go its own way. Ariens were straightforward, almost pure and simple in desires, and they fell under the sign of bravery and a strong, innate sense of justice.

Kyoko supposed she could see how that applied. Becoming a Shinigami was an adventure, a perhaps reckless action but an act of individual choice, and the innate sense of justice and bravery tallied nicely with it, as did the straightforward, simple honesty. In her own quiet and understated way, she realized she could identify with a lot of it - even the areas Ichigo couldn’t have.

How weird and interesting.

“Kyoko, stop gazing into the glowing box slowly devouring your soul! School!” Rukia was calling from the door.

“Right. Sorry!” Kyoko closed the computer, grabbed her new book bag, and ran past her amused family and out onto the front steps with Rukia.

-

Kyoko yanked at her school uniform skirt as they hit campus after stopping by the office. “This is so _weird,”_ she muttered to Rukia. “I feel like everyone’s staring at me.”

“You’re psyching yourself out,” Rukia responded calmly. “No one’s staring. You’ll do fine. Besides, we both know you’re just nervous about meeting your friends again.”

This was true, Kyoko could admit to herself.

They walked down the halls and hesitantly, Kyoko walked into her old classroom and peeked inside. It felt like forever since she’d been in here, and so much had changed since. 

But everything was the same. All her old friends chatted in all the same seats. Kyoko swallowed, grabbed “Ichigo’s note” in her sweaty palm, and walked over to them. “Um… hello?” She cleared her throat and tried to smile as all her old friends turned to stare at her, Rukia smiling for their benefit behind her. “Are you… Kurosaki Ichigo’s friends? I’m his cousin.”

Two of her guy friends stood up. “Do you know why he hasn’t been appearing at school all week?!” Inoue Orihime demanded, leaning forward in concern.

“He usually walks to school with me, but since last week whenever I called to his bedroom window he just… never appeared,” said Mizuiro, frowning. “His Dad said he was busy. Honestly, it was kind of creepy.”

“He… he wanted me to give you this!” Kyoko winced and held the note out.

Her friends took the note and all bent around it. Mizuiro read it aloud to everyone curiously:

_Hi, guys. It’s Ichigo._

_Look, I hate to do this to you, but some serious shit just went down with some of my relatives in another city. Because of this, I’m transferring schools and homes with my cousin Kyoko. I told her to give you this. I wanted to say goodbye in person, but for complicated reasons that turned out not to really be an option._

_Please don’t ask her about it. It’s sensitive._

_I’m asking you to look after her and take care of her - for me. She’s going through a lot of changes in her life right now and she needs your friendship and your help. Her best friend Kuchiki Rukia transferred with her, but even that only goes so far._

_Again, I’m sorry it had to end like this. I don’t like it either. Not to get all sappy, but you all meant more to me than I can say._

_Thanks,_

_Ichigo_

Everyone looked slowly up at Kyoko, who was waiting on tenterhooks. She’d tried to minimize damage and heartbreak. She told herself it was natural for Kyoko to look nervous - supposedly, she’d just had something really personal read aloud to a bunch of new friends.

Everyone was staring. “So… you’re Kyoko?” Mizuiro asked.

Kyoko jumped. “Y-yes! I’m Kurosaki Kyoko and this is -!” She swallowed and waved to Rukia. “This is Kuchiki Rukia.” Rukia, a tiny delicate pale girl with shoulder length black hair, beamed for everyone’s benefit. Rukia had told her enough to make their friendship believable, so Kyoko added uncertainly, “She likes cucumbers and dumplings, tree and rock climbing, drawing, summer dresses, and rabbit themed items. She’s kind of quiet and no nonsense, but a good person.”

She winced internally and waited for someone to catch her out. To her surprise, no one magically read her mind.

“Two girls! Welcome to our circle of manhood!” Keigo cheered, running straight at them with his arms open. As surprised as she was angry, Kyoko punched him in the face on reflex and he went down.

“Geez! Don’t flirt with me!” she shouted, blushing and severely creeped out. Keigo used to be her most flirtatious guy friend. It was indescribably weird when that guy friend suddenly started flirting with _you._

Tatsuki laughed. “Yeah, you punch just like a Kurosaki,” she said, amused. “Don’t worry, Kyoko. We’ll help you out.” She gave a warm grin. 

_I missed being your best friend, Tatsuki,_ Kyoko realized quietly to herself as she smiled uncertainly back.

“So! Introductions!” Mizuiro clapped. “I’m Kojima Mizuiro. I know everyone in school,” he added chipperly, “am involved in several extracurricular activities, and don’t worry, I only seduce older women.” Kyoko gave a wry, amused smile. She already knew that quite well. He had a baby face and black hair. Mizuiro continued with introductions.

“The one you just punched on the floor is Asano Keigo. Professional class clown with a terrifying older sister. He flirts with pretty much everyone but is not as successful at it as I am!”

“Hey!” Keigo protested from the floor. He had longish messy brown curls and a lax manner.

“Arisawa Tatsuki is Ichigo’s oldest friend. They met in elementary school when they both took karate. She’s a black belt who heads karate club and a general tomboy.”

Tatsuki, with short messy black hair cut even more shamelessly boyish than Kyoko’s, lanky and willowy, gave a smirk and a lazy wave.

“Inoue Orihime is Tatsuki’s best friend and probably Ichigo’s newest friend. She’s cheerful, daydreamy, clumsy, and artistic; she loves comedy shows, is an eccentric cook and a baker, and wears lots of long flower print and Asian print skirts.”

Orihime, with long caramel hair, a round face, and a curvy body, gave a small, weak smile. To Kyoko’s extreme confusion, she was not as cheerful, ditzy, and happy as she usually was.

“Honsho Chizuru is a blatant lesbian and fiercely opinionated political activist with a huge and open crush on Orihime -”

“But I could make room for you, too, if you want,” Chizuru cooed. She had frizzy hair and glasses, a mischievous smirk. Kyoko shivered and gave her a weak smile in return. She wasn’t really any more disgusted with Chizuru than she was with Keigo.

She just had no idea what to do when people flirted with her as a girl. For obvious reasons, Chizuru hadn’t shown even a glimmer of interest in her before.

“Yasutora Sado, nicknamed Chad by Ichigo, is half Mexican and spent several years living in Mexico. He’s a musician, has a tattoo, is super quiet, and loves animals.”

Chad, a very big and muscular dark-skinned guy who wore a gold coin pendant on a chain underneath his shirt, walked up to Kyoko and put his hands on her shoulders. “I take my debt to Ichigo very seriously,” he said solemnly. “Let me know if anyone bothers you, and I will kill them.”

Kyoko had the strangest urge to laugh. “Thanks, Chad,” she said uneasily, smiling cheerfully. “I don’t think I’ll need to have anyone murdered. But thanks.”

“The last three are Kunieda Ryo, bookworm and track star,” a tall and bored-looking girl with long sheets of black hair hiding her face and a silent manner, “Natsui Mahana, the most cripplingly and accidentally honest, childlike, and enthusiastic person I know,” an excitable girl with a fluffy head of brown curls, “and Ogawa Michiru, the human version of a shy little bunny rabbit and head of the arts and crafts club,” a shy but sweetly smiling girl with barrettes in her hair clutching a stuffed animal, a Hello Kitty keychain on her backpack.

“You two should eat lunch with us,” said Tatsuki with certainty. “All the girls eat lunch under a tree by the baseball diamond.”

“Uh -” Well, actually, that did make sense. “Okay,” said Kyoko uncertainly. She hadn’t pictured eating lunch anywhere other than the flat school roof with the guys, which she supposed was an undersight on her part.

“I want to eat lunch with her,” said Chad quietly, and he and Tatsuki had a stare-off.

“Well, hey - Chad seems pretty secure in himself, and not troublesome - why doesn’t he just eat with us?” Kyoko suggested uneasily, trying to please everyone.

“Well we don’t want to eat by ourselves!” Keigo wailed.

“Yeah. We’re coming with Chad.” Mizuiro crossed his arms and nodded.

“I don’t know if I want _you two_ there. You’re terrible flirts,” said Ryo, narrowing her eyes.

“Chizuru seems like a flirt as well,” Kyoko pointed out reasonably, “and to girls, too. _She_ eats with you.”

“It’s a good point,” Rukia admitted, shrugging.

Tatsuki sighed. “Okay,” she said reluctantly, relaxing. “We’ll all eat together. But under the tree in the green grass. It’s prettier,” she mandated.

“Fine,” said Keigo. “You’ve got yourself a deal.” And they shook on it.

Kyoko relaxed. Everyone would be eating together, their lunch place got an upgrade, and she might even get to know the other girls besides Tatsuki and Orihime better. Rukia would be there. Everything was fine.

Then Orihime suddenly stood up, in tears, and sprinted from the classroom. Kyoko’s heart sunk. “Orihime! Wait!” Tatsuki stood and sprinted after her. 

Before anyone could stop her, Kyoko had run after them.

-

She found them on the back steps by the gym lockers. Orihime was curled up crying. Tatsuki sat beside her with her arm around her, comforting her.

“Orihime… what’s wrong?” said Kyoko uncertainly, frowning. “Is it something to do with my cousin?”

Orihime gasped and they both looked around.

“Oh… it’s nothing… nothing!” Orihime wiped her eyes and tried to smile tremblingly. 

“It… doesn’t seem like nothing,” said Kyoko quietly, sitting down beside them.

“... Promise you’ll never tell him? I wouldn’t want him to feel bad,” said Orihime quietly, looking downward.

“Sure. He’ll never know,” Kyoko promised. Technically it was true. Ichigo was gone - he _would_ never know.

“... I had a crush on him. Silly, isn’t it?” Orihime sniffed and smiled, looking up tearfully at the sky.

“You… _liked_ Ichigo?” Kyoko’s eyes had widened, some indefinable emotion running through her.

“Yeah. I mean, he was all macho scowling and rebellion on the surface, but you know? I watched him, and he was a lot more than that. He was really intelligent but he mostly kept it hidden. He was a really good big brother to his little sisters. He was kind of quiet. And I always felt like… there was a part of him that wanted more, a part of him I didn’t entirely understand. He was… very honest. I… liked that.” Orihime smiled sadly down at the ground.

“Well…” Kyoko didn’t know what to say for a moment. Ichigo never had any idea and she was totally floored. In retrospect, it seemed obvious - the way Orihime always perked up and seemed even more cheerful and chipper and clumsy and ditzy than usual when he came into the room. But he hadn’t registered it that way at the time.

And now… she felt no overt attraction when she looked at Orihime. She didn’t think she was ever getting that back. Kyoko mourned realizing something - too late.

Tatsuki sighed. “That oblivious asshole,” she muttered. “It’s bad enough that he left without saying goodbye to me; I’ve known him since we were about six. But he didn’t even notice Orihime’s feelings and say goodbye to her either.”

Kyoko felt guilt well up in her throat.

“He…” She swallowed. “He told me he felt really bad about that.” Tatsuki and Orihime looked around in surprise, discerning. Kyoko realized Chad and Rukia had come up behind them and were standing silently; they’d probably chased them down and heard a lot of it, and Rukia looked sympathetic. “He did. He felt terrible that he couldn’t say goodbye to you guys.

“And… he mentioned Orihime, actually.” She swallowed as Orihime’s eyes widened. “He said… that Orihime always seemed like a really great girl. Very… happy and cheerful and kind. And that he hoped that didn’t change because of him.”

“... Thank you,” Orihime said quietly, meaningfully, her eyes full.

“... What happened?” Tatsuki asked softly.

“Not… not today.” Kyoko tried hard to smile at the ground. “Someday,” she promised quietly, “maybe. Just… not today.”

“... Okay,” said Tatsuki suddenly, standing. She looked serious but sympathetic. “Come on. You can sit with us in the classroom,” she told Kyoko.

“Yes! As you’re Kurosaki-kun’s cousin, maybe we could even become a threesome!” Orihime said excitedly, standing, wiping her eyes. She was probably still upset. But it was just like Orihime, to try not to show it.

Kyoko breathed a sigh of relief. “I’d like that,” she admitted, trying for a smile. “Come on, guys.” She stood and turned to Chad and Rukia as well. “Let’s all go back inside the classroom. 

“I missed a week of school and if I want to keep my grades up, I have a lot of catching up to do anyway.” The old Ichigo would have found that sentence nerdy. The new Kyoko had no time for such thoughts, was determined as a woman to prove herself as a good student.

Kyoko’s big - somewhat new - group of friends did all laugh and chat, goof around and have lunch together out on the grass in the shade of the tree by the baseball diamond. Kyoko got asked plenty of questions about herself, and Rukia got asked a lot of questions about Kyoko as well - along with a few questions peppered in about Rukia herself. But thanks to previous preparation, they were all questions that could be answered.

Kyoko relaxed, laughed more easily and chatted, and felt herself slowly becoming her own distinct person and presence even at Karakura High School. Over the following week, she would find a steady rhythm with her friends, as she and Rukia were slowly included in the group - as Kyoko herself got to know the other girls better, was slowly included as Orihime and Tatsuki’s third.

Now came after-school Shinigami training in the training room underneath the Urahara Shouten.


	4. Chapter 4

Kyoko had one type of lesson each day of the week after school. On weekends, she took a rest - from training and school, though not from Shinigami duties. On training afternoons, Rukia would take out her red glove, shove Kyoko’s Shinigami soul out of her body, and let her train with it.

Tessai’s lessons were first.

“Our first step,” he said in the desert training room, as Rukia sat curiously off to the side, “is to get you to find, move, and access all your reiatsu. I will then take you through the first step to kido and through that teach you the first step toward reiatsu control.

“So, without further ado -”

He shouted a spell, stuck out his palm, and something heavy slammed into Kyoko. She screamed as she was thrown across the room and pinned down by a heavy force - she couldn’t see anything - it was total blackness - she was being pressed tighter and tighter - she could hear Rukia shouting something at Tessai off to the side, but the pressure was not being let up - she pushed her unreleased, giant zanpakuto further and further upwards -

And with a scream, she felt something unlock and _move_ inside her.

The pressure was shoved off of her, and she leaped to her feet as the echoing ring of energy rippled through the training room, slamming against the rocky cliff edges and shaking the entire space a little. Rukia and Tessai had just managed to keep their footing, shaken.

“... Can you feel it?” Tessai said.

“That… that presence around me? Yeah. It’s in a cloud all around me… but it’s coming from _inside_ of me…” Kyoko breathed, her eyes widening.

“Very good. Move it - over there please, not at me,” said Tessai, breathing hard. “Press it against the ground off to the side there.”

Jerkily and awkwardly, Kyoko did so - and Rukia gasped as a physical and invisible force _pressed_ itself against the ground.

“Very good. Let up,” said Tessai immediately, and Kyoko did so. “That is your reiatsu. I pushed a kido spell against you to unlock it. You see, the owner, Urahara, had theorized rather scientifically that you’d never actually felt your reiatsu before. Despite your already incredible actions for a human, most of your energy was still locked away inside you. What we were seeing was, he said, as if a closed off tap occasionally lets off a drop of water.”

“Amazing…” Rukia breathed.

“Owner further theorized,” Tessai continued, “that if you were to unlock, feel, and access all your power… the tap would turn on. Full gush of water, all the time. And he was right. What I feel from you now, Kyoko, is Captain class level reiatsu - unheard of for a rookie. It’s just totally untrained, raw, uncontrolled.

“Never lock that power away again. Learn to feel it on a regular basis. You need every bit of it to make you faster and stronger.

“You also need it to learn reiatsu control and do kido spells,” he added, straightening officially and clearing his throat. “That is where I begin.

“Now, Shiba members are prone to extremely explosive spells and lots of power. Not so fast,” said Tessai warningly, as Kyoko had been smirking faintly, “all that power also means that many conventional spell and control exercises don’t work on them.”

Kyoko frowned. “So… what do I do? Shiba members must still learn spells… mustn’t they?”

“Correct,” said Tessai, nodding. “Feel your reiatsu presence, put your hands together, and close your eyes. Imagine a circle. Fill it with black color. Imagine yourself moving toward that black circle…”

Kyoko had been doing so. She knew her reiatsu was doing _something._ She heard a gasp and made to open your eyes.

“Stay calm! Continue what you’re doing!” Tessai said sternly, sounding slightly nervous despite himself. The gasp must have been Rukia’s. “Let your power grow, but as it does so, imagine it as a flame. There is a flame in the center of the black circle. You’re moving toward that flame. Look at the very center of the flame - the calm red part that never changes, amidst all that big chaos.”

Kyoko did so. Whatever was happening outside where she couldn’t see… stabilized and then stopped.

“Keep picturing that, and no matter what you’re about to see, _keep calm._ Control is all about calm.

“Now open your eyes.”

Kyoko did so - and was faintly amazed. There was a glowing blue circle of reiatsu around her, completely spherical, but it was the size of two houses - maybe bigger. It had engulfed Tessai and Rukia, was at risk of engulfing the training room.

“... How big are these things usually?” she asked in a falsely calm voice.

“About the size of a tall human,” said Tessai solemnly.

… Oh.

“Now, are you still picturing? Kyoko - remain calm, focus,” Tessai barked.

“Y-yes.” Kyoko shook herself and decided to look at Tessai - not the giant ass reiatsu sphere. “Yes, I am.”

“Focus on the red part at the center of the flame - imagine the black circle and the flame getting slowly smaller and smaller,” said Tessai calmly, his eyes sharp.

Kyoko did so. “It’s hard,” she breathed, realizing she was sweating and her breath was coming sharper; there was a stitch in her chest.

“Control always is. But you are defined only by your own mental ability and your own imagination,” said Tessai, his words echoing oddly to her.

Kyoko pulled in and pulled in - looked up. Tessai and Rukia were no longer in the sphere of reiatsu. It was now about twice the size of Kyoko herself.

“That’s good enough for the first lesson,” said Tessai. “Let go.”

Kyoko slumped and gave a sigh of relief. The reiatsu echoed faintly out around the desert chamber - probably longer than anyone else’s reiatsu could.

“Hybrid vigor,” said Tessai, pushing his glasses back up his nose, pushing back the dreadlocks. “That was incredible, Kyoko. But we must master better control throughout these next sessions. Only when you can make a perfect sphere exactly your height - in other words, only when you have excellent control - can you do kido spells. You learn to keep the perfect sphere invisible, and then you learn to channel your reiatsu, chant, and imagination through it in order to create the spell effect.

“Still, your reiatsu already feels tighter, does it not? More controlled?”

“... Yeah,” Kyoko realized, feeling around. “It’s not just a big mess anymore.”

Tessai nodded. “As Urahara suspected, you are a fast learner,” he said. “That control will make you even stronger and faster as well.”

“I didn’t recognize those exercises,” Rukia said curiously. “I learned differently.”

“Yes, well, as I said,” said Tessai. “When it comes to reiatsu and kido spells, the Shiba are special. They require unique exercises. In times past, for kido, the Shiba always hired private tutors like myself.”

-

Yoruichi started out with, “How much do you already know about swordsmanship and hand to hand?”

Kyoko blinked. “Well… a lot… for a normal human, anyway. I have a black belt in karate, and my friend Tatsuki was really into kendo for a while - so is the older sister of my friend Keigo. So I picked up some swordsmanship here and there as well.”

Yoruichi nodded. “Good!” she barked, and Kyoko jumped slightly. “Then that should make things smoother. We don’t have to start from step one. I will therefore begin by sparring with you and teaching you advanced series of moves. Making you an expert in both styles of fighting.

“I will go at your untrained speed, but don’t expect me to let up on you in any other way.”

Kyoko straightened, frowning firmly. “I wouldn’t want you to. I want to get better,” she said.

This seemed to be the right answer, for Yoruichi smiled.

“But first - stealth and Shinigami speed.”

Yoruichi took her through several silent stepping exercises, hiding strategies, and taught her how to make a pathway with her reiatsu and then jet there down the pathway - the first precursor to what was called Flash Step. “Another day we will start putting these exercises together. After that we will teach you how to incorporate the finished technique into fights. But that day is not today,” she said. “You also must master reiatsu control for part of stealth - only with reiatsu control can you practice temporary reiatsu suppression.”

She then spent a good few hours beating the crap out of Kyoko in every possible way. First with fists, then with wooden swords. Kyoko was panting, dripping with sweat, and extremely sore by the end - and she was already pretty damn fit, capable of downing five grown human men in a street fight.

Ichigo had always thought that as a fighter, he was good. As Kyoko, she realized the full truth. Ichigo may have been good.

But Yoruichi was _amazing._

-

Urahara’s lessons were a little more… abstract. Also eccentric.

He started Kyoko out with lots of notes covering a basic introduction of his three intellectual subjects: reiatsu science and theory, Shinigami history, and Shinigami practical work aspects. Details of each subject would then be added in later sessions. Kyoko learned a lot, and it was interesting, but she also learned a lot about Urahara during this long, extended lecture.

He loved freaking people out and embarrassing them. He was prone to making horrific announcements in a high, cheerful voice, he had a mischievous sense of humor, he never seemed to quite take anything seriously, and his sense of humor was even more bizarre than Isshin’s. But Kyoko learned quickly not to be fooled.

Urahara Kisuke was pretty fucking brilliant. He also cared more - and was more moralistic - than he seemed to be. He was a hard person, but not an unfeeling one. It was obvious. You had to listen to how he worded things, where his emphasis was. Shinigami were a shade of grey and Kyoko appreciated that neither Urahara nor Rukia ever tried to hide that.

Urahara spent the first five minutes of zanpakuto release training trying to get Kyoko to do ridiculous exercises in the name of finding her zanpakuto name and shape. Kyoko glared and snapped at him, heatedly refusing to do any of them.

Finally, after several minutes of bickering that seemed to delight Urahara with increasing glee and infuriate Kyoko, Rukia sighed, “Oh, Urahara, just teach her how to meditate with her damn sword.”

So Kyoko learned the truth: all she had to do was meditate and reach out a tendril of reiatsu to her unreleased zanpakuto. “I’ll warn you,” said Urahara, “usually reaching your zanpakuto spirit immediately takes some big, traumatic event. The long and steady way, you might not get there before Rukia’s powers leave you.”

“It’s okay,” said Kyoko. “I just… want to try.”

He nodded and stepped back, letting her sit in front of her zanpakuto cross legged. It was stuck in the ground before her. She reached out a tendril of reiatsu, as small as she could make it, and closed her eyes… If she were being honest with herself, she felt dumb.

But then she sensed something.

There was a blur before her, like looking at something through a foggy see-through mirror. There was a blur beyond it, an incomprehensible echo of sound. She reached out, but she couldn’t reach, feel, hear what lay beyond that foggy glass barrier. She got the strangest impression of moonlight and darkness.

Then her eyes fluttered open. “It felt like moonlight,” she said, puzzled, “and darkness. But I couldn’t get to it.”

“Well, the fact that you could tell anything about it is pretty amazing,” Urahara admitted. “You’re tired, right?”

“... Yeah,” she realized, feeling.

He nodded and moved forward. “That’s enough for today,” he said quietly. “We’ll just work on that once a week, each time you meet with me. Really, you should continue the practice even after you reach your zanpakuto spirit.

“I’m not worried.”

-

During Rukia’s first lesson, she took Kyoko through all the steps of sending a ghost on to the Soul Society. Kyoko would get counseling in what to say, not just what to do. But the main focus was on what to do.

“Send reiatsu down to the end of your zanpakuto, to the end of the hilt,” Rukia said, “and _press_ into the air, onto their forehead in your imagination.”

Kyoko tried this, pressing into thin air, dragging the zanpakuto and leaving a trail of glowing, glittering blue dust in her wake.

“Good,” said Rukia, “but not so much dragging. Touch hard, and release. Back, and forth.” She demonstrated. “And as your control improves, your Konso ability even on difficult souls with a lot of baggage should prove magnificent, too.

“Now, let’s talk about sensing.”

Rukia turned toward Kyoko.

“First, try sensing what’s directly around you. Stretch that reiatsu as far as you can.”

Kyoko closed her eyes. She reached the cloud of reiatsu around her out, stretching it as far as she could… “Hey!” she said, amazed. “I can feel all of Karakura!” She opened her eyes - and watched in fascination as countless white ribbons floated around her. “They’re souls…” she whispered in awe, eyes glittering as she brushed her hand against the ribbons. “They’re souls of people in Karakura!”

“Er - yes.” Rukia shook herself and pointed at the crimson ribbon nearest. “That’s you,” she said. “Shinigami ribbons are always red.”

“You seem surprised,” said Kyoko curiously.

“I should have guessed… with your sheer reiatsu power… that’s a Captain and Vice Captain level broad sensing technique,” said Rukia ruefully. “Hybrid vigor indeed. But let me guess - you can’t do a simple sensing of those closest to you.”

The ribbons faded as Kyoko concentrated her power in a different area. “... No,” she admitted. “I don’t know how.”

Rukia nodded. “Then I’m going to take you through exercises in how to sense what’s directly around you, and you’re going to practice it in your daily life,” said Rukia. “First, conscious surroundings sensing. Then, unconscious surroundings sensing - the reflexive kind.

“Let’s get started.”

-

Urahara had designed a special kind of dark glasses Isshin had to wear while using the training room. Only then could he see Kyoko as a Shinigami.

“Hey. Don’t I look cool?” was the first thing he said with a thumbs-up, grinning.

 _“Dad. Focus,”_ said Kyoko, exasperated and irritated.

“Sorry. It’s just… you look pretty cool yourself as a Shinigami, you know?” He was smiling proudly.

Kyoko paused, blushed, and looked down. “... Thanks,” she muttered. The black robes flowed around her tall, slim figure, her gigantic zanpakuto strapped at her back and coming to rest by her short, boyish, sophisticated curls of orange hair.

“Now!” said Dad more officially, clapping once. “Rule number one to Hollow hunting: one clean slice through the head from behind and they disintegrate. That’s the essence of Hollow hunting. If pressed, a slice through the head from the front will also work. But the key is head and disintegration - one deep blow.”

Kyoko paused thoughtfully. “I guess Ichigo would have had a problem with that way of fighting,” she said thoughtfully. “But honestly, after hearing the Kaien story… they aren’t going to be fair to us, it doesn’t sound like, so why should we be fair to them?”

“Yup. Definitely a woman way to think about fighting,” said Dad with certainty and even pride. Kyoko scowled and glared at him, not nearly as angry as she pretended.

“So. These next lessons teach you about not only the different types of Hollows and their behavior and characteristics, but physical techniques for destroying them and fighting them off.”

-

Jinta kept trying to do impressive things every time Kyoko came to the Shouten. He would watch her leave every evening with moony, admiring eyes. Kyoko had _no_ idea what to do about it. Even Ururu seemed amused. Yoruichi plainly found the whole thing hilarious.

“It’s just a kid’s crush. It’ll pass,” said Rukia in amusement as she and Kyoko entered school together one morning. 

“I guess,” Kyoko sighed.

Just then, their friends joined en masse around them. “So,” said Keigo as if their conversation from yesterday had never been interrupted, “last night my sister -”

As the big group moved on, chatting, Kyoko was practicing her sensing absently - and she looked over at another first year high school classroom in surprise. A guy in there… had _crazy powerful_ reiatsu for a human.

He had straight black hair and dignified spectacles. He was sitting silently by himself. As she passed and they felt each other, his head whipped around, his eyes gazing at her suddenly discerning - 

Oops. Kyoko dropped his stare and moved quickly after her friends. She decided not to bother the poor kid.

After all, all _she’d_ wanted as a teenage human boy with reiatsu was to be left alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter, we _finally_ get back to the manga. We start at chapter three - originally Orihime's arc. The possible modifications should be interesting, yes?


End file.
